Dell Sucks Dude
Years ago (2002 to be exact) I was using Movable Type on this site, and the most popular blog post I ever wrote was entitled “Dell Sucks Dude”. This was the same time that crazy surfer Dude with the weed smoking problem was in all kinds of television ads touting ’shoulda boght a Dell dude!’ in his worst Keanu Reeves voice.
I wrote that post because I was very frustrated upon having received a new Dell at my place of work. It was the year that they went more mass produced, and used the notebook CD-Rom drives in desktops for the first times, and traded in the trust old Microsoft mice for really cheap Dell ones…and more compact keyboards too.
It must’ve struck a chord, because tons and tons of people posted comments to that page. If I printed it out, it would probably be some 50 odd pages or more. Eventually I had to take the comment posting feature out, because of blog spam. But now…..with Drupal - I am “re-posting” the original article (with all comments) in it’s entirety - and (are you ready for this) — I’m reopening the comments!!! enjoy….click on the “read more” link below.
What a day this has been. Seems like I’m getting sick, so a major head cold has been scrambling my brain since morning. I was up late last night scouring the web for a good online survey creation tool. I was looking for software that would allow me to create a survey, and they give me Perl files to upload to the web server. The results would get saved to a comma delimited text file. I did the same search a few years back and the best piece of software turned out to be EZSurvey. Even though I hate that pitiful piece of software, it is actually the best thing out there still today. I finally got my survey created and went to bed at 1:30am. Of course this was for work, not for this site.
Speaking of work, I got a new computer at work today. Can’t exactly say where I work, but it’s a big Fortune 100 company. Of course, we use Dell for all the PC’s in the company. My last PC, now a few years old, was ok (for a Dell). When I got the new PC out of the box the first thing I noticed was the cheapness of the parts. I mean, here I am unhooking the old PC, and layout the new parts right beside them. The mouse is a cheaper grade of plastic, and the cord is roughly half of the diameter around. The wires are just plain cheap. The keboard is only 2/3 the size of my original one, and very cheap plastic. It reminded me of a $9.95 Keytronics keyboard. It’s cord was also very thin. One of the local support techs told me that he picked up a keyboard last month, and when the cord got caught on something on the desk it ripped right out of the back of the keyboard case.
Luckily enough, my new PC actually came with a real CD-Rom drive. What I mean is, almost all the newer ones seem to be coming with cheap notebook CD-Rom drives (in the desktops). Sure the machine is fast, it seems to be working good so far. But I believe that if Dell keeps putting out cheap cookie cutter assembly line pc’s like this their business will dry up. I know damn well that keyboard won’t last me more than 6 months. Microsoft should be embaressed to have their name on that cheap knockoff Dell Intellimouse.
I just went to the Dell web site and was looking at a 1.7 Ghz machine with 512MB Ram and a 40GB HD, 64MB video ram, 17″ monitor. That piece of crap was over $1,200. Good lord, I could build a much BETTER machine with better quality parts for around $800. For $1,200 I could build a PC with IDE Raid, 2-40GB hard drives, 1GB of ram, and a 128MB video card. I bet I could even squeeze in 5.1 surround sound in there.
I may be biased, but I’ve been building PC’s for myself and others for 5-6 years. I hate cookie cutter production PC’s. If you’re thinking of getting new PC, do yourself a favor. Go to your local computer store (not the Best Buy, Sears, OfficeMax, CompUSA, Circuit City crap) and talk to a guy that actually builds PC’s for a living by hand. Ask him what he likes. Tell him what you want to do on your PC, and have him give you a price. Unlike cars and applicances, you can actually pick out piece by piece exactly what you want in your puter. That’s right, you can hand pick the case, the mouse, the monitor, cool speakers, a big hard drive, and lots of memory. If you don’t know what to get, they can help you.
Enough of my soapbox for today. Just remember I said it first…
Dell sucks dude.
Posted by jtpratt at May 08, 2002 12:13 AM
Comments
I totally agree with everything that you have said. I also have been building my own Pc’s for about 6-7 Years, It’s actually quite amazing how much money you can save doing a bit of D.I.Y yourself nowadays.
I am also equally amazed at the amount of revenue that somebody like DELL make in a year, well considering (like you said) the pieces of shit components that fill there units.
Keep up the good work…… ; )
Posted by: David Nuttall on June 6, 2002 03:33 PM
Hell yea dell sucks I went down to my friends computer shop and they had a brand new dell that a customer brought in because it was too slow. the problem was that dell sold them a pentium 4 system with 128 mb of ram
Posted by: visor909 on July 1, 2002 01:55 PM
“?We at Dell feel a strong obligation to uphold our federal law, but we have just as strong an obligation to be responsive to the needs of all our customers?” -Michael Dell quoted in Sierra Times
This is a statement that Michael Dell made–I can’t believe it!
The way the technology industry is going, I think this would be of interest to you. I have sent this letter to many interested media. To name a few Miami Herald, Wired Magazine, Dallas Business Journal, New York Times, USA Today…My complaint is against one company so you can only imagine what else is out there in this corrupt abyss.
Below is a letter I have sent to over 5 different divisions of Dell. I have not received one return call or inquiry, typical. The biggest problem is trying to get in touch with someone that has a phone number and a little authority and is not afraid to help a customer. Perhaps this letter will be received in good notion to open an investigation into Dell. I did some research on complaints about Dell and not to my surprise I have uncovered at least a few dozen articles, numerous amounts of customer complaint forums, personal email from fellow unsatisfied customers of Dell as well as many other resources of negativity. I have even sent email upon email and letters to Michael Dell. To my dismay I have yet to receive an acknowledgment of support. I have spoken with corporate CEO’s to personal Dell computer users, they all seem to have the same story. How can these conglomerates keep on getting away with such mal-practice. Perhaps they are lining their jackets with a bit of Enron, World Com, Andersen Advice.
7/03/02
To Whom This May Concern:
I am writing this letter to hopefully get the attention of someone in your company to take a senior roll in helping me accomplish my goal for a functional and reliable computer and better customer support and service.
My story goes as follows; I purchased a Dell Computer on Jan 28, 2000 under the small business department. Upon the arrival of the system and set-up, with in a week, I began to notice malfunctions with the computer. So begins my many calls and many tedious hours on the phone with technical and customer care support. Over the past couple of years, I must have approximately logged over 110 hours of phone support. I have also logged roughly 100 hours of hardware/software work ( replacing, installing, uninstalling?).
As of today?s date, my monitor, motherboard, hard drives, video card, and modem have been replaced. Currently, my computer is down because my power supply is not working. I have continuously run diagnostic and anti-virus checks and to my dismay I am still having problems with my system. I have wiped my hard drives clean at least three times and still remain at the mercy of a sour system. Upon many attempts to have the system replaced I encountered many dead end roads and rude agents? assistance. I cannot count the amount of times that the phone has been hung up on me. But what upsets me the most is the fact that no particular agent has taken any initiative to take my trouble ticket and see it properly worked through to the end.
I have been informed that my system will be replaced if I had to replace three major components. I believe the motherboard, hard drive and power supply fall into that category.
There is a very simple resolution to my problem, replacement. All I want is a reliable system! A reliable system which I so willingly thought I was purchasing! Unfortunately, I cannot fathom the amount of wasted time and money I have spent on this LEMON. I am pleading that this letter falls into the right hands of someone that will help put a conclusion to this matter. If this problem is not resolved immediately I shall have no other choice but to fill a complaint to small claims court.
Unsatisfied Customer,
Posted by: terney on July 3, 2002 04:09 PM
Ah yes, another user who believes that replace the whole thing is the answer.
For all the non-computer people out there, you shold realize that there are only so many pieces to a computer. It seems that most of yours have been replaced. Kindly notice that if any part is defective, it gets replaced within warrenty your. Hence, if it’s broke, call and have it replaced. If they won’t replace the whole thing, try the next best, piece by piece.
Also, you had a 30day money back guarentte as well, why didn’t you take that?
About the 128Mb or RAM quote, did the customer ever think of ordering more? The system are customized for the cust aat their request. They could have asked for more.
Then again, that’s just the opinion of a DellTech
Posted by: Groda Lotsapot on July 13, 2002 06:50 PM
I totally agree. About a year ago i didn’t know much about building computers especially OS stuff so i went ahead and bought a Dell, like a dumbass. When i tried to install Win 2K it would get through setup say “Starting windows 2000″ and freeze. When i complained they said they didn’t sell me windows 2k so it isn’t their problem. IT SAYS DESIGNED FOR WIN 2K ON THE FRONT THE MACHINE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHAT THE HELL. NO NT OS WILL INSTALL ON THIS POS.
Posted by: Robert on July 17, 2002 10:32 PM
I can’t believe that there are people out there that think DELL Engineers ANYTHING. They are nothing but a distributor that happens to assemble batches of parts that were bid out to major “Manufacturing” Companires of components. DELL has som many fooled is is just astounding! If you lose a compoenent in any DELL after say 6 months of purchase you not only get a replacement part but you get a big F$%&^ing headache replacing and updating drivers or firmware (if they actually still work together). Then you still end up with the slowest PC on the market.
Posted by: anonymous on July 25, 2002 11:02 AM
Yes indeed, Dell does suck.
I’ve been trying for nearly three weeks to get a keyboard replaced. I have overnight service (ha ha).
First, they couldn’t send out the part because their spare parts inventory system was down.
Finally, they send out a tech…with the wrong keyboard.
Then they sent a second tech…also with the wrong keyboard.
I see on their “support” board that in one 150 person company *50* lame Latitudes have had to have keyboards replaced.
There’s a class action suit waiting to happen on this company.
And they gave money to George Bush.
Bleah.
Posted by: dissatisfied customer on August 1, 2002 08:06 PM
Yes, Dell does suck and if you are considering Dell because you like the reviews by some on hardware, do a simple search on their customer service. You see the same thing time and time again with no change: When you do have a problem, dealing with Dell’s customer serivce department is a terrible experience, ALWAYS.
I purchased a lap top from Dell and because the resolution on the screen can not be changed, everything came out tiny. After a few hours on the phone with Dell, they finally told me to return and repurchase with a different configuration.
They turned me over to sales. They took my order, took my payment info and when I ask to be connected to do the other part of the transaction (the return) I was told to call a different number.
The return required me to call several more times and finally explain to a supervisor that I just purchased the replacement and was told by Dell to return the first one. She gave me return info.
Two weeks after FedEx got the returned lap top to Dell, I emailed Dell to find out where my credit was and was told 30 days from the date received by Dell.
So I wait 33 days and emailed again and got an email apolgizing and was told 72 hours for credit.
So I wait a week and call this time and am told 72 hours for credit.
So I call two days ago and am told “72 hours and I will call you later today to ensure you everythig is done.
So, naturally no call, and I call today and talk to a supervisor who says ‘48 hours.’ I want to talk to his boss because I have received the ‘wait several business days’ answer FOUR other times and each time the promise was unfullfilled so on this, the fifth time, I want a better answer than that. Well, he tells me he will not give me his bosses name. That his boss does not take phone calls. That there is nothing else. Basically ‘wait again.’ I don’t even think this guy was a supervisor. When I first ask for one I was told “there is no supervosor today,” “the supervosors are all in meetings” and “wait on hold and I’ll get you a supervisor,” ALL IN A TWO MINUTE CONVERSATION WITH THE FIRST PERSON WHO ANSWERED THE PHONE when I ask for a supervisor in the first place.
BOTTOM LINE, SERVICE COUNTS. NO MATTER HOW MUCH YOU THINK YOU WILL LIKE THE HARDWARE, IF YOU SERVICE DEPARTMENT HAS AN ANTI-CUSTOMER ATTITUDE, IT SIMPLY IS NOT WORTH IT. THERE ARE OTHER COMPANIES OUT THERE THAT HAVE GOOD HARDWARE AND HAVE GOOD SERIVICE TOO. I WAS CONSIDERING THEM AND I SHOULD HAVE STUCK WITH THE THOUGHT.
SERVICE MATTERS. DONT BUY DELL.
Posted by: Greg Venne on August 8, 2002 01:28 PM
All of you people saying there are other companies out there with better hardware components obviously haven’t done a damn bit of research on the matter. Dell has the most cutting edge technology out there as far as PC manufacturers are concerned. And the person earlier mentioning that Dell doesn’t actually manufacture any of the components themselves…would you rather have the opposite of that?? Would you rather have more components in the computer that can’t be upgraded like other big name computer companys do?? Dell is now and has been for several years the best PC manufacturer. Yes it is cheaper to build your own PC…yes you can get higher quality components by building your own machine, but some people know squat about PC’s or just don’t care to know or take the time to put a machine together.
Posted by: Boo FrigginHoo on August 10, 2002 11:09 AM
in my opinion dells are the pc versions of macs and they are almost as anoying as theie adds
Posted by: voice of windows on August 14, 2002 02:46 AM
All day long I take care of customers who have issues with their Dell machines. Most of the calls I deal with are software related and user error, along with some hardware problems. I enjoy my job and I dont hang up on customers! Oh and I will actually call a customer back when I tell them I will… I must admit, that there are techs that have no business working in the computer business…believe me I have come across calls where parts have been replaced when it was software, and windows reinstalled when there was no doubt it was hardware. The techs that dont do their job only make it harder for those that truly enjoy what they do, and go out of their way to make things right. I can only speak for myself.. I do try to do my very best with the customer…One word of advice: if you are going to buy a computer, irregardless of the manufacturer, take some sort of computer class to get familiar, it makes the techs’ job easier, and keeps the frustration level at a lower point on both ends. We can not take the time to show a customer how to use the computer. We are here to determine the problem and replace parts if neccessary… ONLY. Its sad to say that there are some bad apples out there that actually spoil the whole bunch. To those wanna-be techs, I say… go work for McDonalds and leave the troubleshooting to those who know what they are doing.
Posted by: Jamie on August 14, 2002 11:05 PM
While there are instances that some hardware does fail, after reviewing the statiscal data for returns and replacement, the actual amount of hardware that has issues as compared to the total volume of shipped units is very small. Most of the issues found with systems are end user related and have very little to do with the actual hardware. It is unfortunate there are techs that would rather press the dispatch a part button than dig into an issue, root cause it and solve it. However, there are some technical support personnel at Dell that do know computers better than the customers that are having issues.
I can tell you from working on the inside, Dell systems are the best engineered in the business and getting better. Yes, you can go build your own system, but when one of the parts that you put in it doesn’t play right because of some conflict or other compatibilty issue, you are the one stuck with it. Try replacing that part, some of the mom and pop shops will not take returns, especially on custom ordered items. If Dell sucks so bad then why are we number 1 worldwide?
Posted by: anon_omis on August 21, 2002 10:06 PM
i agree dell does suck its customer care is a piece of crap. McDonalds has better customer care than these sorry people. I think someone should end up suing dell. investigators might find a whole lot of enron or worldcom in it.
Posted by: unsatisfied customer on August 23, 2002 03:08 AM
You people obviously dont know what you’re talking about. If you think dell sucks then you think the whole computer industry sucks. Why? Dell doesn’t make their own parts they buy the same products you would buy in the store and put together yourself. The only difference is IF you do it yourself the cost is cheaper since some of the money you pay goes into manufacturing the system at the dell warehouse.
The only thing dell does to your computer if you dont make it yourself is add cheesy software that you can easally erase as they really just copies already existing windows programs. If there is a hardware problem dont complain to dell that their parts suck, complain to the actual manufacturer because if you ordered from gateway/hp/compaq you would be getting basically the same thing(even if you made it yourself).
Also if you’re going to spend $500 on a pc you can expect to get something that isnt going to run the way you like(speed and performance wise, again not dells fault because you decided to go cheep). At least spend $1500 to get a desent system that will last with the technology for the next few years.
BOTTOM LINE is this…dell doesn’t make anything itself (except for monitors, mouse keyboard which most are pretty good actually) and because of that when you order from dell you’re ordering their service to take the parts you ordered put them together as you would yourself, add some stupid software that does NOTHING to the performance of the system and ship it out to you. My best advice is to look around and see which company will give you the system you’re looking for at the cheepest price, and right now thats dell.
Posted by: yawn on August 23, 2002 03:01 PM
Support, ha! I WAS totalled pleased with Dell support until recently. After reformatting my hard drive on my dimension p3, I found I was missing the cd to install the drivers for the cd burner (dell installed). After many excessive hours with “tech support”, I was told I MUST have the cd, since it was supposed to ship with the unit. Well, of course, it wasn’t. The ever-friendly (lol) person @dell told me I would HAVE to purchase the Roxio cd from Dell, lest I void my warranty. Well, considering it was supposed to ship with the unit, and I didn’t have it, I decided NOT to be blackmailed by Dell. I sent many emails & responded to their inquiries as to their service, yet received NOTHING as far as help with the missing cd. All this after purchasing my 3RD DELL!!! So much for any future purchase from Dell. I see why now the consumer opinions of their customer support is dropping..
Posted by: James on August 29, 2002 11:12 AM
Buy Dell if you want horrendous service, poor quality and you have lots of
patience. When dealing with a product suh as a computer sometimes the quality of
customer service can be as important as the quality of the computer. DELL offers
neither. I bought a Inspiron 2600 for $1862 including tax and shipping. It is 1.2
ghz celeron, 256 mb RAM, 20 gb Hard drive and 8x DVD. I thought this was the best
deal I could find. I was wrong. The catch? If you want to return anything to DELL
you have to pay shipping and insurance and you re not refunded the original
shipping. In my case this would have come to approx $480. Four hundred and
eighty dollars to return a product which did not work. I argued with various DELL
employees and to no avail. You could tell they didn’t care. My laptop was
overheating right away and the hard drive failed within 2 days of recieving the
product. Before asking for a refund I had been on the phone with Tech support for
a total of 11 hours, half of that time waiting on hold. No joke. Once connected
to tech support they agreed I needed a new hard drive. They sent one and it
failed. That was when I asked for a refund. They wanted to run more diagnostics!
Things to remember if considering to buy Dell:
1.) To return a product, for whatever reason, you will pay the shipping cost.
This includes the original shipping cost and the return cost and insurance. There
is no way out of this. I argued with them that the product was not working and to
no avail.
2.) If you have a problem with your machine, being that you can’t return without
losing money, you have to send your machine to be fixed or wait for parts to
arrive. This can be a couple of weeks. Once the parts arrive you have to call
DELL, wait on hold for a min 50 minutes, and then work with the tech guys to fix
it. Basically if you’re computer illiterate you’re hooped!
DO NOT BUY DELL. Go to an electronics store, like futureshop or A&B sound or
wahtever. There are obvious advantages. The prices are the same and if you have
problems you can just drive to the store and get it fixed!
I was at a store yesterday and saw an exact copy of my laptop, except it was
Toshiba, for less!!
DELL DOES NOT HAVE TO DEAL WITH CUSTOMERS FACE TO FACE. THIS MINIMIZES A LOT OF
THE ACCOUNTABILITY!!
Posted by: cb on September 13, 2002 01:22 PM
uhm. yeah, the self-proclaimed computer experts that “work on computers for 5-6 years” are always the funny ones. You know that all they’re really doing is tinkering with their own PC at home for *5-6 years*. They think installing a GeForce card, and going to Nvidia’s website to download a unified driver makes them a qualified tech. These are the same nimrods that tell me Gateway’s are “proprietary”.. *SNICKER*.. LOL boys, funny.
I love the talk about mom and pop shops too. I cant tell you how many people I know that have been ripped off by the “awesome” mom and pop shops.
If you want to build your own computer, that’s fine. Go ahead. But if you’re average ordinary joe buy a Dell or a Gateway. Don’t even bother with Best Buy or CC they ship all of the systems off for 4 weeks at a time for repair.
(PS DELL USES PROPRIETARY CASES, MOTHERBOARDS, ETC) BWAH. (not that it even matters anyway)
Posted by: gtw_tech on September 20, 2002 01:17 PM
Go to www.planetfeedback.com . It is the best Consumer Affairs site there is! My brother purchased a Dell and had nothing but trouble with it for 2 years. They would do nothing except send a service man out. After 2 years, I contacted www.planetfeedback.com and my email was sent by them to Michael Dell himself. In 3 days, they shipped him a new computer and he has not had a problem since. I truly believe, he was sent a refubished machine originally. This also happened with a friend of mine who had an HP. I told her about planetfeedback and she was sent a check for the full purchase price.
I have owned 2 IBM’s over the last 6 years and they are both running like a top. They sell for at least $500.00 less than the other junk out there and if you do need tech support they are there for you. IBM, (International Business Machines) has built and sold more computers than anyone else in the world.
This site is not just for complaints about computers. If ever you purchase ANY product that you feel is defective or causes you problems, this site will work for you at NO CHARGE and go to the top of any company, until something is resolved. I can’t say enough good things about them.
Posted by: Gale on September 21, 2002 04:21 PM
I unfortunately bought a Hell(Dell)Computer 2 years ago. To make a real long story short…
the monitor was junk, the OS wouldn’t work &
I couldn’t set up the printer. After about 20
hours on the phone they said that they didn’t
know what to do. I told them to send out a tech
3 times and they refused! Their piece of junk
cost me $2200. I ended up returning the computer,
loosing $500. for shipping both ways and for the
HP printer that they wouldn’t take back because
I had thrown out the original box. Then they
wouldn’t refund my money after 3 months of waiting! I finally filed a complaint with the FTC
and finally got my money. After all was said and
done, to add insult to injury, they kept sending
me their catalogs! These scumbags put me through
so much trouble they’re lucky I didn’t board a
plane to Texas and take care of things personally… and I told them so! If you ever
consider buying a Dell, just shoot yourself in the head… it would be alot quicker and less
painful!
Posted by: Russ on September 22, 2002 06:21 PM
i just got off the phone with dell.
I’ll just give you a taste of what it was like talking to a dell technical support specialist.
me(repeating the third time): “the video editor will not output to my vcr.”
dell tech moron: “video what?”
me: “video editor. I bought the premium dell movie bundle studio package from you folks.”
dell moron: “you bought a dvd player from us?”
me: “no, i bought the dell premium movie bundle studio package. it’s a video editor package. it comes with software and hardware. you guys installed it and sent it to me with the dell computer that i recently bought.”
moron: “are you talking about a dvd movie player?”
me: “do you know what a video editor is?”
moron: “does that have to do with dvd movies or video recorders or something liek that?”
me: at this point i gave him the part number of the product that i had bought from dell.
moron: several seconds of listening to him shuffle paper he said, “i don’t believe we sell that item.”
me: “i bought it from you.”
moron: “you talking about a dvd player right? you’re saying that it doesn’t play movies?”
you get the picture. i’ve spoken to four dell people today and none of them came close to solving my problem. one guy gave me the phone number of the manufacturer who built the video card that dell put into my computer, which is like Saturn giving me the phone number of a fuel injector manufacturer that’s in their car.
i should have bought a Mac or maybe built my own computer.
by the way, since i’ve bought the computer, i’ve had several boards swapped out by their crack force tech team.
i hope mike dell loses all his money and has to retire on social security.
thanks for the sounding board.
gw
Posted by: gary thomas on October 8, 2002 10:26 PM
you think owning a dell is bad,try working for them!I worked as a temp building desktops.they expect you to build thirteen an hour.ok,fine.BUT if you are caught making three mistakes in 90 days,and i mean any mistakes you are fired!mistakes include failing to place those usless caps on un used power cords,a tab sticking out of the side of the closed case, mispinning the speaker,etc.i was fired for making such small mistakes,that all get fixed in quick test and post burn anyway.I begged them to move me to material handling or something i could handle,oh no they said things like”we know you can handle it”and wouldnt listen to me.the trainer admitted to me that he only built in single peson build one day and he said”f*** that”.just imagine nine and one half hour shifts all weekdays,and working on about half your saturdays,building an impossible number of machines per hour with this axe over your head.every one there makes mistakes and the people who have been on the line long know its not fair the way new people are just crushed out by theise demands and severe consiquences.the reason the machines are crap is because they are thrown together with great fear and pressure. BAD KARMA! dell hase no sense of responsibility to the people that actually do the work that makes them so much freakin money.I worked my butt off for them and they just dumped me for not being a perfect robot.to furter insult me when i spoke to the rep of the temp sevice they said i couldnt do material handling now”out of courtesy” to the dell manager that had me fired!WHAT?i asked them both and two trainers to move me because i coudnt handle it before my last black mark!everyone just passed the buck and left me stuck there with pats on the back and encouraging words.now i cant even get in the building!i dont know how im going to pay rent in this apt i rented way up here out of the way just to work for those sorry bastards.end of story.
Posted by: exdelldrone on October 11, 2002 11:18 PM
Rather than simply say DELL sucks, I’ll stick to the facts…it’s amazing…
SUMMARY of REPAIRS:
1.DELL i7500 Hard Disk Drive replaced twice: 03/21/2002, 05/22/2002
2.DELL i7500 CD-ROM/DVD drive replaced three times: 03/22/2002, 03/25/2002, 05/21/2002
3.DELL i7500 MotherBoard replaced once: 05/20/2002
4.DELL i7500 Keyboard replaced twice: 05/22/2002, 05/24/2002
5.DELL i7500 LID latch replaced once: 05/22/2002
6.DELL i7500 replaced with DELL i8100: 05/30/2002
7.DELL i8100 motherboard replaced: 06/06/2002
8.DELL i8100 replacement missing 2nd battery: 06/06/2002
9.nVidia driver crashes system once per hour: 06/06/2002 to Now
This is not an isolated case…
I have several friends with DELLs that have had similar numerous problems.
Posted by: Summars on October 16, 2002 01:48 PM
I attended a customer service seminar and Dell, Ford, and Sears were three companies that came up that had horrible customer service. They are being used as a model of how NOT to do things. My experience with Dell has been horrible, I have a laptop at home and desktop at work. It just kills me to see their commercials about how well their customer service is, and then attend a seminar where they are used as an example of bad service, you should have heard some of the stories by a few of the attendees…egads.
Posted by: jeffgtr on October 17, 2002 02:02 PM
I just wanted to comment on “yawns” posting above. True Dell doesn’t actually manufacture anything, they just assemble the parts, which leaves the fact that all they are is customer service, you can buy the parts anywhere. Now when you consider the volume of complaints out on the net, and now Dell is being used as an example in how not to handle customers in seminars it has to mean that the people posting here aren’t whiners and complainers, it means there are very real and concrete problems with Dells customer service. Sure they’ve pushed alot of computers out the door, but I know of one company that purchased over 600 Dells and will not be ordering Dell next time along. I think Dells run as a top computer putter together, pushe em out the door, and forget em will soon be over.
Posted by: jeffgtr on October 17, 2002 04:25 PM
I hate Dell. I have never seen such ignorant and horribly incompitant people in all my life! They have sent 6 shipments to the wrong address, I have spent countless hours in technical support as well as customer care. Customer care?? More like we have no idea what the f*ck is going on so lets put you on hold some more. I have sent letters, of course no response. It is time that the consumers start pushing back. If anyone has any bright ideas as to leave a dent in this moronic company email me at swens1977@hotmail.com
Posted by: swens on October 21, 2002 11:35 AM
The best way is to post everyplace you can about your experience. Search google for “dell sucks” and you’ll find several places. Use the word dell as many times as possible (within context of course) so the search engines will pick it up. I’m sure you’ve already done this, but relate your experience to friends and family, word will get around. Unlike Microsoft that has a monopoly on operating systems, Dell can be dented, it will just take awhile. I just read they were the top selling pc , egads.
Posted by: jeffgtr on October 21, 2002 05:26 PM
I have to agree with everyone’s comment on how DELL SUCKS!!!! I also have had nothing but problems with my DELL. Since the first week I got it would not go on Stand By. Then when I installed an ethernet card (needed it at school) it wouldn’t recognize my graphics card so all teh graphics were messed up. So afte many long hours with the people at Dell, it got fixed, but guess what? Yup another problem, now it wouldn’t recognize my sound card. So it’s back to the long wait on the phone. Like many others they try to fix the problem by running diagnostics and all that other crap. Finally they decided that I had the option of reinstalling ALL of the programs. If that meant that my problems would be over then sure. I did it. It took over 6 hours to do that not including all the hours I had to spend on the phoen with the customer support. So of course it didn’t work. They finally just sent someone out to replace the sound card. Finally a couple of months without any problems until my CD-ROM went out. It just would not work. Again after some long hours on the phone it got replaced. Again now my Dell is having problems. The truth is I don’t want to even call them to spend a whole night on the phoen with them. That’s just not my idea of fun. Eventually all these problems will catch up to them and sales will go down, or so we hope. The amazing thing is that there are so many complaints yet they manage to sell so many PC’s. My brother is convinced that my problems stem from the Windows XP that I’m running. Does anyone else have problems with this program?
Posted by: EJ on October 24, 2002 01:04 AM
I too have had a wonderful experience with Dell recently (Sarcasm evident here).
I found the guts to a precision 530 workstation where I work but no case. The power supply had died and one of our junior technicians didn’t like the chassis assembly and the cost of replacing their power supply ($179.00). He figured he would gut the machine and replace the chassis. Obviously a rookie mistake because Dell makes everything in that box as close to custom as possible so you have to use their replacement parts.
The machine sat there for awhile, and being an electrical engineer, I decided it would make an excellent home workstation if noone at work had objections to me taking the equipment. Okay, so I get the parts home.
This is where the fun begins.
Dell won’t sell me a chassis to put THEIR parts in because I don’t have the SERVICE TAG NUMBER. What a crock. They send me to the business division because that’s where the Precision workstations belong. The business division won’t help because I don’t have a corporate account and actually hung up on me!!! Great customer service.
Dell deliniates personal versus business machines based on horsepower. Bogus, as anyone who desires to play Quake III at 120fps knows that they need a near engineering workstation to accomplish this.
So I finally, after literally 3.5 hours on the phone I find a woman who seems to really care and she pieces me together a chassis from spare parts that are supposedly available. Great!!! Or so I thought.
The web site says the order will ship September 29,2002. That date comes and goes so I call. They tell me that there are one or more items on back order and that they won’t ship until October 10,2002. Okay, I can live with that.
October 10 comes and goes.
I get an automated phone call… “This is the Dell parts ordering system. We had anticipated being able to ship your order prior to today but due to lead times beyond our control we will not ship before October 29,2002. If you do not want your order automatically cancelled before October 10, 2002 please call…” blah blah blah.
I call and state that I don’t want the order cancelled to three different departments who assure me my order won’t be cancelled.
I get the same call the next two mornings and spend a total of 3 hours (total 6.5 now) on the phone with them confirming that they are not going to cancel my order.
I woke up this morning as we near the shipping date to find that they cancelled my order. I call… LIVID… what the hell were they thinking? All they can say for themselves is “I apologize… you’ll have to re-place the order.”.
(We’re now at 8 hours flat on the phone.)
If I hear “I apologize” one more time I’m gonna puke. If you’re so F%^&ing sorry then fill the F%^&ing order. What, my money is no good?
This company has the strangest customer support policy I have ever seen and would never in a million years pay money for a new system from them. What prevents them from saying that this guy has waited long enough and pull the parts from the floor. I work in a manufacturing environment and would do exactly that if a customer needed my assistance. However, my company cares about the customer.
Dude… don’t get a Dell. It is obvious that Michael Dell has no idea what a big stupid bloated pig his company has become. They fill the airwaves with notions of excellent support and care for their customers. Until you are an owner. Then, everything you do voids your warranty and they will hang the phone up on you at any chance they get.
My goal in the near future will be to reverse engineer their motherboard pinouts and provide them to the populous.
HERE IS THE BEST PART OF THE WHOLE THING:
They had the guts to accuse me of trying to produce a fake Dell to sell to someone.
Give me a F%^&ing break. Don’t be so proud of those machines you produce Dell. I would buy a $70.00 tower in leiu of your stupid $379.00 case any day of the week. However, I don’t have that choice because your motherboard is not standard and only fits in one case which you refuse to sell me.
At one point they even suggested that I should just buy a new machine for $3000.00. What complete arrogance is this?
Just my two cents. But I hate them.
Oh yeah, ther customer service department offered to reduce the cost of my order 20% when it was replaced for my trouble. I told them I would pay 20% more if they would just send the damn thing.
Posted by: Todd Felege on October 25, 2002 08:50 PM
I have to disagree with the negative feelings of Dell tech support. They do use some cheap parts sometimes, I agree - my hard drive failed within a week of getting my Latitude C400. However, I called Dell, and they overnighted a new drive to me (they told me they dont ship on mondays but I got it on monday somehow, after calling on friday.) I popped it in, loaded XP onto it, and everthing works fine. They even provided a shipping label to send the bad drive back to them, PLUS paid for it. I also spent less than five minutes on hold to talk to a tech, and that was on a friday evening, prime-time for tech support calls. The guy was extremely polite and when I told him my hard drive had failed and put the phone to the drive for him to hear, he didn’t quibble. He said “your new drive will be shipped overnight and probably get there tuesday. Sorry about the problem.” (again, it got here monday instead.) I have been very happy with tech support, even if it was an inconvienence to have a broken computer for 4 days.
Posted by: A home user on November 12, 2002 11:58 AM
i have worked doing the software support for dell for the last three years. i hate dell. they are one of the cheapest companies to work for.
they shipped all of the hardwaresupport to india and the phillipines to (save money) gee so much for an american company. lay off americans and hire foreighners. and I hear it all the time how the hardware support screws up the systems and cant be understood.
and over the last year they have gotten worse.
you would think as one of the biggest mfg that they would take care of their people ( guess again)
Posted by: frustrated tech on November 12, 2002 11:20 PM
I just got my computer from “Hell”, as in “your getin’ a hell dude”. Received it on 10/9/02, a Hell precision Workstation 530, 2 x 1.8 GHz CPU’s, 2 x 36 Gbyte MAXTOR hard Drives (Quantum), multibay CD/R/W, 250 Mbyte Zip. I work for the largest purchaser of Dell Products, I wish I could have bought my work computer from another vendor, however the justification write up would have taken me till XMAS to argue with purchasing about.
Problem # 1 - Hard Drive #0 (SCSI) failed. It squeals very high pitch, and freezes processes. I tried to tell them this but they did not believe me. I called them again on 11/13/02 and asked to speak to their expert since all the morons there had no idea what they were talking about. Did a couple tests and guess what? Hard drive 0 failed. They sent me the new part and it failed their test. Come to find out that they have the pins addressed wrong on the original drive as well as the one they sent to me. Checked the MAXTOR site and sure enough they have the wrong diagrams for the pins!!! I would tell the people at Hell, but I hate them for wasting tons of time and reformats out the ying yang! Many other customers will have this problem. Another guy at work just ran into me while typing this, “hey my #3 hard drive failed!” Sure enough addressed wrong with terminator incorrect! I have a new problem, something is going on with sleep mode, it shuts down but does not wake up, have to do a full shut-down and reboot, so I found it is easier to kill it at the end of each day.
Posted by: iPUTNAM on November 18, 2002 05:04 PM
Problem #2 today the new drive arrived and installed it. Shut down reboot, holy cow hard drive error. The new drive is no good!!!!
I guess the devils at hell saw my first post and wanted to make sure they got me back. Waiting on FedEx, Airborne, or UPS whichever delivers from hell.
Posted by: iPUTNAM on November 20, 2002 05:30 PM
Problem #3 Just got in the 3rd hard drive and it failed the test sequence. Dell is the worst computer company of all time, they now have replaced Gateway as my most hated computer company. Next time, I will write as many justifications as possible to not get a Dell, including writing my Congressman if I have to. Firing off a letter this week to my friends at 60 MINUTES, thay might do the trick.
Posted by: iPUTNAM on November 27, 2002 01:40 PM
Umm, hey genius pro dell peeps out there that post here, in case you havent read this forum thru, most complaints are about the service(or lack of it) that dell provides. Fighting this point w/ your feeble minded inquiries about how wonderful and grand the comps are for the price we pay is like trying to say that George Bush(the current one) is a genius, even though he had a fucking C- average in high school. These unsatisfied customers are absolutely right in the regard that Dell Support ‘Sucks’ so if you wanna try to fight that point, try to accomplish something noteworthy and fix the problems that they have w/ their comps, or at least find a way to direct them to someone they can. I tell you this because an iceburg can look crystal clear from what is seen above water, although divers may find quite a load of shit when they look below the surface. Your right, dell makes decent PC’s, good ones even, price-wise compared to what is out there, but who gives a shit if the’re not good for it after shipment? find a new forum pro-dellers, unless you have something to say that applies to this one.
Posted by: Anti-dell-tech on December 3, 2002 11:11 PM
What more could I possibly add to what this forum has already posted? I just want others to know that I am yet “another” unsatisfied Dell system owner. I have had problems since I bought the major P.O.S. And since the ignorant Dell Support personnal don’t know their ass from a hole in the ground, my warranty has expired and the problems have now become mine and mine alone.It seems that “Steve” the “dude” man is more intelligent than their support. “Dude, he’s getting screwed by Dell”, is much more fitting. It seems that Mr. Dell was in the right place at the right time and offered a simple service to customers. But it is very obvious that he left out the most important ingredient “Support”. He got rich from feeding from our ignorance and laziness. Anyone without proper knowledge or time to build their own system would easily fall into the hands of a service that could provide a “one stop shop” for all their computer needs. I guess as we become more aware of the direction of technology, then unnecessary services like “Dell” will no longer exist. Enjoy the millions why you can Dell, because your company will not be around forever.
Posted by: cadniques on December 6, 2002 10:39 AM
Thanks for the page. Yepper I too am another piece of collateral damage of Dell Computers. I have a 8100 and have replaced the HD 3 times and the DVD went I was told I don’t have one, lol. Yes Dell is very inovative, they can turn perfectly good hardware into crap without passing it through a digestive system. At least one thing Dell has shown me, they aren’t playing any favorites, they’ll screw anybody.
Posted by: willie on December 9, 2002 12:33 PM
OMG !!!!! I CANT BELIEVE IM SEEING MY OWN STORY…….ALSO BEWARE PEOPLE DO NOT GIVE THEM YOUR CREDIT CARD TO HOLD ORDERS THEY WILL SWINDLE YOU AS WELL!!!!!!!
Posted by: chyna on December 17, 2002 11:15 PM
My experience with Dell has been nothing short of horrifying. Following is a letter I sent to the editors of the major computer magazines. To date, I have received no acknowledgement, which comes as no big surprise. They’re not gonna bite the hand….
Anyway, since writing this letter, I have once again re-installed the OS, this time with no peripherals installed. Performance is at best marginally better, and my old 350 mHz machine with 64 MB of RAM still smokes this useless piece of crap. After reading the prior posts, I too believe I was sold a refurbished machine, or at least one that was defective from the get-go.
The following letter is long, and details an experience that is probably not that unique. I am fed up, though, and seeing Dell’s freakin’ ads about their stellar customer support just frosts me, so I’m going to start making noise about this again.
Bill O?Connell
Cowboy Heaven Consulting
9/9/02
To Whom It May Concern:
First, thanks for taking the time to read this letter, which details a truly horrific series of problems with a new Dell Dimension 4400 desktop. While I am not a software engineer, I am not exactly a computer newbie either. I really can?t imagine someone with little or no computer experience being faced with the problems I have had with this computer. Anyway, at the moment the purpose of this letter is mainly to allow me to document the chain of events of this little debacle. If you see fit to use all or portions of it in your magazine or website, you certainly have my permission. If you would be so kind as to offer any suggestions, you would have my immense gratitude, and if nothing else this could perhaps spare someone else the hell I have been through.
In March 2002 we purchased two new Dell desktops. This one is a Dimension 4400, 1.6 GHz, 256MB SDRam, with a 40 GB hard drive. The other is a Dimension 2100, with a 1.1GHz Celeron processor, 128 MB memory, and also a 40 GB hard drive. Both have Windows XP Home. The only reason I mention the 2100, is that from the first time they were both plugged in, it has outperformed and been more stable than the 4400.
I am a careful shopper, and read numerous reviews of the 4400 before purchase. People raved about ?blazing speed???, and superb operating system stability. Well, I didn?t have any point of reference besides my prior machines, the latest a 350 MHz Windows 98 Gateway. From the start, I didn?t really feel this new one was much if any of an improvement. At simple tasks like downloading files, the old machine is approximately twice as fast (and there is nothing wrong with the modem on this one, we checked that). This did not make me happy.
Still, I put up with the situation for a few months. As I?m sure is the case with you, I have myriad other things demanding my attention, and since computer problems tend to be an enormous time sink, I procrastinate on them if possible. Over time, though, this situation became increasingly aggravating. I eventually started monitoring the performance through Task Manager. The system would consistently run at about 35 % CPU usage, even with no programs running. When even just a couple of programs were opened, CPU usage would regularly jump to 100%, and things would come to a standstill. There were about 35 ?processes??? running in the background. At times, I tried to stop these processes, but no dice. The final straw came when I installed a new Canon scanner, along with Adobe Photoshop Elements. When I would attempt to edit photos in Adobe, the machine would lock up every time. This did not make me happy.
So I called Canon tech support, prepared to be underwhelmed. On the contrary, their representatives were very good, although it soon became apparent that the problem was with my computer, not the scanner or related software. So began a long series of calls to Dell tech support.
You have probably heard similar tales to the start of this saga many times. Please bear with, in the latter stages mine becomes truly bizarre. My first call to Dell connected me with a person who barely spoke English. I detailed the high CPU usage and number of processes running. We were basically unable to communicate, and although I don?t recall the exact steps we attempted, the upshot was that nothing was solved. So, I called back. The second time I got a very knowledgeable person. We ran numerous tests, and he finally deduced that my operating system needed to be re-installed. His diagnosis was that this computer had become infected with a virus. That may be so, although I religiously update my anti-virus software, and never open unexpected attachments. I realize, that does not guarantee one will not become infected. However, I believed, and still believe, that something was wrong with this computer from the start.
So, I spent parts of three days backing up my vital files, called Dell tech support again (several times, actually, I am leaving out a number of the calls), and we re-installed XP. Then, I re-installed all my programs, and restored the files I had backed up. Things were somewhat improved. Now the system operates at around 15-20% CPU usage (with no programs open), with about 20 processes running. Still, I can?t say I would describe its performance as ?blazing???. One quirk that turned up in short order is that I didn?t have the proper modem driver, although the modem functioned properly. No problem, Dell sent me a CD with the proper driver. In the interim, though, during a dial-up session, the little modem icon that appears in the taskbar just up and ?poof???; disappeared. The modem still functioned, just no icon. That is an annoyance, because it?s how I disconnect, as well as monitor my connection speed. I know, it?s a quaint concept, but out here in the hinterlands we still don?t have broadband other than satellite available, and I understand satellite can be problematic. We connect via modem at around 52K, and that is tolerable, at least until something better becomes available.
So, I called Dell again, and this is where things turned strange and the situation began to deteriorate in a most alarming fashion. The first tech support person I got can only be described as clueless. He didn?t even know there was such a thing as a modem icon, and said the problem was with my ISP! After numerous lengthy holds, he finally told me I needed to call software tech support, and that he would get the number. Five minutes later, he came back with a number that proved to be for some engineering company, with no connection to Dell whatsoever. That did not make me happy.
The next call connected me to a very personable and knowledgeable representative. I won?t go into all the solutions he attempted, but the result is that he was stymied. He said it was a very unusual problem, one he had never encountered. He was mainly a hardware tech support guy, and since the problem was apparently a software problem, he also referred me to software support, and immediately produced a functioning phone number for them.
So this morning with some trepidation I called software tech support. To my chagrin, I discovered there would be a $29.00 fee for this service. I need this thing fixed, though, so I ponied up with a credit card. And then waited on hold for 45 minutes! That did not make me happy.
When I finally got through to someone, I would say on a scale of 1 to 10 for competence, they were about a 5. Not dazzling, but not an imbecile, either. We spent approximately the next hour and a half attempting various solutions, many of which had already been tried by various other techs to no avail. This was about the point at which I started taking notes about what we were doing. I would describe his attempts as rudimentary; like deleting the temp files, running checkdisk, and checking the start menu in MSConfig. Of course, we also tried the obvious solution, making sure the box was checked in the modem properties to display the vanished icon when a connection is made. I had long since tried that myself, at the start of this whole process. So, again after numerous holds, he came back on the line and mumbled something about it apparently being a hardware problem, and with no warning transferred me back to hardware tech support. Not directly to an individual, but back to square one, the accursed recordings you get when you first call up. That did not make me happy.
The next tech support person was a 2, or perhaps a 1.5. He also had never heard of the modem icon. It rapidly became apparent we were getting nowhere. By this time I had been on the phone for nearly three hours, and my patience was getting brittle. I demanded to talk to his supervisor. The supervisor was also unfamiliar with the modem icon. After bringing him up to speed on the situation, we ran through several possible solutions, most of which had already been tried. We then ran Quick Diagnostics on the hard drive, which tested OK. One thing virtually all the techs commented on, though, was the glacial pace at which this computer runs the diagnostic tests. The software tech support guy earlier said there had to be something defective with the computer, and mentioned possibly replacing it, although he later decided it had to be a hardware problem. The hardware folks are sure it?s a software problem, and so it goes?. This does not make me happy.
The hardware support supervisor decided I should run a full diagnostic test, which I am told takes up to eight hours. I assume that is with a computer that functions normally. All the tests we have run on this computer seem to take at least twice as long as one would expect, and I am not sure when I will have 16 hours to allow this machine to check itself out. I seriously doubt it is even capable of that task.
So, we did a system restore to the point immediately after I re-installed XP. After re-installing my programs and the modem driver, the elusive modem icon is back. My confidence level in it staying there is low, however, and I can’t say I have the warm fuzzies about Dell or Microsoft, or for that matter computers in general.
Toward the end of our conversation, he asked if I had any peripherals hooked up when I re-installed XP. Yes, the printer and scanner were hooked up. No one told me otherwise. So, for the moment, in lieu of the full diagnostic test, I am going to disconnect those items and re-install the operating system again.
As it stands; I have spent the better part of a week on these problems, and they are not resolved. The time spent, not to mention the aggravation and stress, exceed the value of the computer. That does not make me happy.
So where does that leave Joe Consumer like me? I operate a small business. I don?t have an IT staff to take care of little vexations like this while I go fishing. If something needs doing, I do it. I would immensely appreciate any suggestions you have as to leverage I can exert on Dell to make this situation right. I suppose writing this letter is one avenue to pursue in that regard, and I thank you for taking the time to read it.
I just need a functioning computer, and since that is what I paid for, I would like Dell to see to it that I have one. That would make me happy.
Regards,
Bill O?Connell
Cowboy Heaven Consulting
Posted by: Bill on December 23, 2002 11:57 AM
I personally know someone who has a Dell. He is also afraid of admitting it and he cannot respond to any puns directed towards them. All he can do is close his I eyes and mumble to himself “..its just a different brand, its like any other computer, its like any other computer,its like any other computer…” and scamper away. Our school runs on Dells, and you can guess how wonderfully productive they are. The computer labs’ CPUs had to have been replaced at least three times. Many a person had a computer freeze while trying to print out a technology class before saving(including me) and ended up loosing their entire document. The techonolgy teacher had finally given up and would excuse the assignment when this thing would happen. I am most certainly not a goodie-two-shoe bookie, but what kind of people would allow their products to disrupt the curriculum of an educational institution? As a quote from Minority Report states, “Isn’t it strange how every organism on the entire planet is related? When the grips are down and the pressure is on, every organism is interested in one thing, and one thing only. Survival.” I think that this is the situation that Dell is basically in. The desperate advertising spree and the declaration of them being the number one PC makes this evident. I honestly think that the only way they could be #1 would be if they paid some magazine a sum of money so large that all the zeros in it would probably overload this server, or that they were the ones who fooled the most people into buying them. If you walk into one of their factories, you would probably see a blur of grey and green flowing into a mountain of cardboard. Sure, they make their computers from everyone else’s components, but I could easily throw a bunch of components on the floor and have just as much honesty as they do.
When my report card was issued, it was mixed up with a forth grade girl’s. Bear in mind that my middle school has 50 students, and the entire K-8 consists of 205 students. Being an absolutely monolithic number, I am sure that no computer could ever come close to getting them all right for the next 50 years (wink wink nudge nudge). I am uncertain on whose fault it is; the principal or the computer. Being that the administrator’s I.Q is smaller than a man’s bra size, and he was using a Dell, my hypothesis is that it was a combination of both.
As my opinion, I would op to avoid a Dell at all costs, even if it is monetary. Right now I have a strong appreciation of being able to see that obnoxious adolescent male in the commercials being fed his parents (if he has any, he might have came out of a test tube for all I know) after having them tossed in a meat grinder.
Posted by: Ernest Thompson IV on December 23, 2002 06:59 PM
Dude - while I do agree for personal reasons that Dell is starting to suck, you made a couple comments that need to be addressed.
First comment: “Microsoft should be embaressed to have their name on that cheap knockoff Dell Intellimouse.”
Dell does NOT make parts. They buy them and put them together. MICROSOFT should be embarassed to be marketing such a cheap mouse. DELL should be embarassed for shipping it.
Second comment: “Luckily enough, my new PC actually came with a real CD-Rom drive. What I mean is, almost all the newer ones seem to be coming with cheap notebook CD-Rom drives (in the desktops).”
The smaller components are being shipped because business keeps demanding a “smaller foot print” (ie - systems that take up less desktop space). As for not being “real” - grow up. Portable systems actually require sturdier CD’s and hard drives because they are smaller and they are designed to be moved. Your desktop pretty much stays in one place.
Dell is becoming like every other successful PC vendor but in part it is in response to consumer demand. People want cheaper and cheaper PC’s and the retailers resort to using cheaper and less reliable parts as well as cheaper and less educated techs and customer service reps.
By the way - I am a Dell tech and I build my own computers. I can tell you that building your own is NOT cheaper these days. However, you do have quicker recourse in the event of problems. I do not know how much longer I will be employed. Current business strategies call for outsourcing all but the most expensive support contracts to third party companies in India and Las Vegas. Think you have support problems now? It’s going to get worse, I assure you. And that makes me very sad.
Time to dust off the resume!
Posted by: DQ on January 5, 2003 03:14 PM
First and foremost, I currently work for Dell as a Customer Care Rep. I enjoy my job 99% of the time. I will tell you, its not an easy job and surely doesnt pay nearly enough for some of the things we have to put up with from customers. I am by no means an overly emotional person but, I have been brought to tears because of the way a few customers have spoken to me like I am a dog and I personally am the one who has caused them so much grief. I have worked in customer service in one form or another for the past 5 years so, I of course generally abide by the rule that “Customers are always right” Well, believe it or not… the customer isnt always right. I have probably been called every name in the book by customers which just so happen to usually be men (nothing against men in general) who think that just because I am a woman that they can talk to me like I’m non-human. Just think about this for a second, if you were in my shoes and I was screaming into your phone and calling you ever name in the book… would you want to help me? I dont think so. I can not speak for the entire company… believe it or not we are not all sitting in the same building holding hands and singing Kum Ba Yah and we can not speak or do anything about what joe-blow did or said that is a half a dozen states away. I personally try to handle things in a professional manor and try to assist customers to the best of my abilities. However, there are polices & procedures that we must follow and can not make exceptions for everyone (unless its a reasonable exception). I will give a little advise, if you are calling customer care… you will get alot more done if you speak to us like we are humans and not a bunch of dogs. Ever hear the saying “A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down”? Well… its the best advise that I can give. Don’t expect miracles for something that is in your error and lastly… don’t kill the messenger. We are just a bunch of everyday people caught up in the rat maze of cubicles.
Posted by: Dell_Fairy on January 16, 2003 01:59 AM
You’ve all stated the hell I’ve been through concerning Dell as well as if not better than I would be able to do, so I will just say “Ditto”, and although the Dell experience sucks, it feels strangely good to know I’m not the only one who wishes Dell would go to hell. Dell doe’s indeed suck….
Posted by: Thomas on January 17, 2003 03:14 PM
After reading all of the horror stories associated with Dell, I am inclined to address this audience to see if anyone would be interested in filing a class action lawsuit against the firm.
Besides giving this serious consideration, I will be taking the following venues against this firm:
Contact the FTC and write a formal complaint
Write a complaint with the Better Business Bureau
Write a complaint with Consumer Affairs.
Someone had suggested www.planetfeedback.com, and that is in the works.
We in New York also have a few television stations that house “investigative reporters” that actually go out and pick apart firms like Dell to determine the extent of their alleged fraud. I’ll be accessing them as well. More likely than not, if I don’t hear from anyone regarding this post, I will proceed with a Small Claims lawsuit, which essentially provices me with remedies up to five thousand dollars.
My story is no different than anyone elses, and is proposterous to say the least. i am writing this from an exhanged unit, an Inspiron eighty two hundred. Please excuse my not using the numbers, but they do not work. This laptop, like the previous one, the original one, also has a mind of its own. I fear that at some point during this letter, it will once again shut down.
I received this laptop several days ago as an exchange for my original, which was sent to Dell for repairs that were necessary because some Dell tech screwed things up even worse. After I received my original unit, the whole system crashed, I lost all my files, and it will not start up. After several days of discussions with clueless techs, I finally was able to get them send me another unit, this garbage, which happened to be a remanufactured unit, with lessor components, to which Dell tried unsuccessfully to convince me that it was actually an upgrade.
I am disgusted. Now I have in my possession two malfunctioning laptops. I am required to send back this one in order to get yet a second exchange. I refuse to take another Dell product, and requested a refund of my full original amount. They refused. So I contacted my credit card company and instructed them to withold payment from Dell until I receive some sort of remedy, in the form of a refund. In the meantime, Dell will not receive either payment nor the two laptops which are in my possession until they agree to my terms.
I have lost four days of work, today will have been the fifth. I lost my job as a result of the WTC attacks, lost many, many friend in the inferno, and no way am I going to tolerate this form of consumer oriented terrorism by a so-called American firm, which has for some perverted reason, become an icon of the computer industry. I am standing up to these thieves, and I urge everyone out there to do the same. Since I am on my own now, I cannot afford to lose another days work, and will require that Dell reimburse me for my time, energy and frustration. Words of frustration alone, anger towards them will do no good. Actions speak louder than words.
The unfortunate part about all of this is that it is a relatively well-known fact that Dell produces inferior products, and horrible service.
The last tech person who sent me this junk replacement also told me that I would have another year’s worth of warranty applied to it, yet I recently found out that I would not. As far as I am concerned, that is deceptive business practices if not fraud.
I am asking that anyone who is interested in pursuing this more seriously, join with me. I will NOT stand by idly and see myself get dragged into the proverbial suckhole by a firm that does not honor either its warranty or committments. If you seek a replacement for a PC that is malfunctioning, request either a NEW machine or a refund. You should preferably request a refund, as you can rest assured you will get a butchered machine as most everyone else has thus far including myself.
Dell indicated to me that the NEXT replacement will be free of defects, that they “guaranteed” me. I told them to put that in writing, and they refused, saying it is against their policy. Their intent is to ride out the remaining portion of my warranty, until they have exhausted my warranty time limit. I don’t care if they are solely service oriented or they subcontract out for parts, they are not worthy of our respect, business, or association. I will probably be contacting the advertisers for Dell as well to provide them with a deeper insight as to their client’s deceptive practices, and let them know, that they too will be associated with their name. Of course, every action I do take will be within the scope of the law, and I urge everyone else out there to practice the same.
It’s time Dell heard us all……
Posted by: Roman on January 21, 2003 05:13 PM
I bought a dell two months ago. Now the 19 inch monitor has broken(cuz its shit). Now im trying to get it replaced, fat chance. I call tech support, they send me on a wild goose chase thru all the departments. All i found out is that they dont have any 19 or 22 inch monitors to sendme and they wont send me a LCD. Im stuck in the dark during the end of the school summester.
Take it from me, if u dont want to be screwed over. Dont buy a dell. Dude your gonna get fuc*ed
Posted by: Vlad_dell_sucks on January 22, 2003 10:44 AM
On January 24th, I found a sale on (2) Dell 2350 computers with a 2.4ghz processor for $678.51. When I clicked on the sale link, I was forwarded to the Dell website where I was then automatically forwarded to the shopping cart section of their website. The sale information was automatically loaded into the shopping cart including the coupons which gave the sale price. I then proceeded to purchase the computers using a credit card. Within an hour, I received a confirming email from Dell, which indicated they are processing the order. The email had disclosure language as follows: “Please note, however, that Dell cannot be responsible for typographical or other errors, and reserves the right to cancel any orders resulting from such errors”. I contacted Dell on Monday the 27th to find out when the computers will be delivered and was told that the order was cancelled because Dell could not honor the advertised sale price. After speaking to several sales Reps, I was told I could have both computers for $929.00. I finally ended the day by writing an email to Mike Elledge, one of their managers. Mike responded a couple of days later by re-stating that Dell could not honor the original sales price. I then received an email from the Dell Small Business Dept., who apoligized for the problem and then offered a 10% discount and another 10% discount if I purchased more than $600. I then tried to purchase a single computer using the exact same specifications to find out what it would cost using their discounts. It cost over $600 for a single computer! So Dell not only misrepresented their original sale price of $339ea but they also misrepresented their over the phone offer of $464ea. I have since emailed Mike various times to negotiate with no luck. I also received an email from Linda Kelly of their Executive Support department who further stated that they cannot help me. I think this clearly falls into the “bait and switch” categorie of section 5 of the FTC ACT.
Posted by: R. Eggart on February 6, 2003 07:58 PM
Dell is there.
I feel sorry for the customer’s who had been mistreated by dell. so far, dell had been trying to make up with its lose ends by giving proper technical support and customer service. But!
Do you the fact that most customers tend to be more irate only makes it more frustating for both customer and rep to help each other. each troubleshooting make take longer depending on the customer. if customer would not want to cooperate then sorry, what can the rep do but try to pacify the customer and try to get the attention of the customer. try to place yourselves on their work. you’ll find yourself which is difficult. do not bent your inflict your anger among them. if you wish to have dell help you, help us help you, don’t be some customer who wants things to be done fast. we’ll assist you all the way. just try be more cooperative and dell will help you believe me. cause i know. thank you for calling dell have a nice day! 
Posted by: Eisenwulf on February 11, 2003 09:33 AM
People wake up and smell the coffee.
All of you, All of us, are being bombarded everyday by DELL’s big advertising campaign that there the BEST PC MANUFACTURER THE WORLD HAS. When they really aren’t! You see them in many movies now, trying to get there product cameo’s and then there commercials which make absolutely no sense.
I feel very sorry for people who purchase DELL computers, they are horribly manufactured, and the company itself tries using an “Efficient-Cost Method” by not incorporating a Research and Development department as well as not enough staff to handle problems. When a company uses such a method, it obviously means they don’t care about us, the consumer.
When you look at a company like Apple or Microsoft, and many others, you see companies that spend money on research and development to continue to push forward in innovations and ultimately help the consumer in every way possible. DELL doesn’t do this and DELL will never do this. They basically say “You bought the computer from us…now you expect technical support? haha”.
As for the comment Eisenwulf gave, who obviously works for DELL, why don’t you take a moment and consider the company you are working for. A corporate giant who doesn’t look towards the future, a company that just resells another companies product. When your as big as DELL and handling the PC market, as Apple handles the Apple market, you should be investing towards the future and help people get stuff done more efficiently.
Everyone above has the right to complain about the service DELL has given them and about the products they sell their customers. They are totally valid and accurate in their statements and I commend them for telling the world about this company, maybe it will make others think twice about purchasing a DELL. I know I have had to call DELL support many times and time in and time again I have been frustrated, and in the end never had my problem resolved.
I hope that this message can reach people considering to buy a new computer, and I hope that you look at those companies in your city, in your town, those small companies that, although may not have as large a product line as DELL, will, in some cases, bend over backwards to ensure the product you have bought is true.
In conclusion, “Don’t get a DELL dude!”
Posted by: RickComp on February 16, 2003 07:32 AM
So I finally get my Dell Inspiron 8200 yesterday…
Finally after Dell goofed up on my order, I get it… and guess what.. it died on day 2.
When I placed my order I ordered an Inspiron 8200 and I asked my sales rep:
“I have 3 other computers at the house, and I want to network them via wireless, what do I need?”
Dell Sales: “All you need is our router.”
ME: “Thats it? How do the computers receive the wireless signal?”
Dell Sales: “Please hold…”
After a 45 second delay
Dell Sales: “Yup thats all you need, all the instructions are there.”
ME: “So I buy this one piece of equiptment and thats it?”
Dell Sales” Yup”
—So anyway
A day later I realize thats not the case, I went to CompUsa and purchased the Network router and the PCI cards to receive the wireless signal.
So I call Dell to cancel the router out of the order (but I still want the computer)
Dell Sales”No problem, we’ll take it out”
ME: “Will this delay my ship date or price?”
Dell Sales “Yes, now you won’t get the free shipping, and the ship date will be (3 days later than before”
ME: “I don’t think so. I want what I originally ordered minus the router or I dont want the computer”
Dell Sales “Please hold”
–after 3 minutes
Dell Sales: “No problem, no delay in ship date, or change in price”
Thanks…
So I check my Order status online and guess what?
I was paying $60 extra for the same system, and my ship date was 6 days later!!!
I called immediatly and another sales rep “fixed the problem” with the price but not the ship date. I settled.
So I get the computer….
Day 2 of having it, I try to burn a CD… hmmm it doesn’t recognize the CD drive.
Called Tech Support.
Tech Support “Turn the computer upside down and take the drive out and put it back in”
ME: “Well the lights are there and I hear the drive spinning, so it might be a software problem”
Tech Support (very rudely she repeats herself): “Turn the computer upside down and take the drive out and put it back it”
So I did, and guess what?
The computer won’t come back on
ME: “What should I do?”
Tech Support: “We’ll send you a new system, it’ll be sent out in 5 business days”
ME: “Another delay? I really need this computer to pay for school (eBay) and for homework”
Tech Support: “I’ll make a note, but its a minimum of 5 business days.”
So now I have to wait another week to have a computer? This is $1600 we’re talking about!!
If your considering getting a Dell, get in touch me ASAP
My email address is alliedaudio@aol.com
Posted by: Jonathan Flugel on February 27, 2003 12:01 AM
Hi all,
As a network consultant, I have been a customer of Dell for many years due to its great quality and excellent service in the past. During the years, I have recommended a lot of purchases through Dell and have invested in the company’s stock. But what I have experienced in a purchase made last year had made me really think whether Dell will still be on the top over the next few years. I am particular worried about it’s ability to handle logistics and customer support. I have documented the whole process and would like to share with you and anyone who cares for their jobs at Dell. And now this is my screwed up story…
12/30/2001 Ordered a dell inspiron 4100 laptop from dell (#731431748) for $1910
1/12/2001 Recieved the laptop
1/30/2002 Called Service Department to upgrade my contract to a 3 year on-site, 24 hour turnaround service contract. Talk to a lady named Joan in the department and she suggested that she will credit my account for $140 and will charge me another $359 for the total of the three year support. I have recieved a case number (#24067755) from her for reference.
2/8/2002 $140 (order#766477160) was credited to my account, but nothing was charged to may account. (I found out about this later.. didn’t check on the credit card bill.)
6/18/2002 My power supply broke. Tried to call Dell for service. To my amazement, they told me that the laptop was sold without any service contract, and I had to rectify it to get service.
6/19/2002 Called and waited for 30 minutes and finally got Joan on the line and gave her a reference number, requested specifically that I want the 3 year on-site, 24hr turnaround warranty. I have explained to her that this is extremely critcal for her to get this accounting issue right since I rely on the laptop to do my job. She apologized and promised to fix it.
6/21/2002 Deducted $215.92 from my credit card. (Order#864023288) Got my contract and got my power supply. I was wondering why she didn’t deduct the full amount as promised, but had no time to follow up with her due to my busy schedue and didn’t want to wait for another 30 minutes on the phone.
12/21/2003 Laptop broke again, this time the ethernet port did not respond, and there is a big white spot in the middle of the display. Called dell to arrange on site service, they quoted me a tech will come in on 12/27 or 12/28 due to holiday season. I pannicked, where is Dell when I need them? Didn’t I pay a premium for their support? Wasn’t there a SLA of 24hr turnaround? I had a deadline to meet before I go on vacation on the 1/28 and no one can help!
12/26/2003 A tech came from Banctech and tried to service the machine. (service call #206019590) Came in and broke the replacement motherboard during installation. I thought, it must be my dammed luck. Knowing that I was going on vacation, the tech offered to bring my machine in and get the issue fixed while I was out of town. I gave him my laptop.
1/25/2003 Came back from vacation, relaxed. Called the tech to try to follow up with my case. Left message.
1/26/2003 Called the tech to try to follow up with my case. Left Message.
1/29/2003 Called the tech to try to follow up with my case. Left Message.
1/30/2003 Tech finally called back. Apologized for being late to return call and broke an extremely bad news. My machine was accidentally sent back to Dell. I was horrified! All my data was in there, and although I have backups for most of the stuff. Setting up another machine with all the environments I need and especially getting all the clearances for keys is really time consuming. The tech promises me that there should be no problem finding it and he will call me tomorrow on status.
1/30/2003 Dell credited me with an amount of $1760.(I didn’t know about it at that time)
1/31/2003 It’s tomorrow. Tech didn’t call.
2/1/2003 Called the tech. Left Message. Tech called back and said they are tracking it and will call me tomorrow.
2/2/2003 It’s tomorrow. Tech didn’t call.
2/3/2003 Called the tech. Left Message. Tech called back and said they are tracking it and will call me tomorrow.
2/4/2003 It’s tomorrow. Tech didn’t call.
2/5/2003 Called the tech and tech said they are tracking it and will call me tomorrow. I told him it’s useless to track him every other day if there is no result and asked him about a drop dead deadline to get me an answer. He said next by next Wednesday 2/12/03 he will know for sure. As usual, he promised to call me on or before that day. Not trusting him for his efficiency and ability to follow through, I started to configure a thinkpad for work as plan B.
2/12/03 No call from tech.
2/13/03 No call from tech. Called and left message.
2/14/03 No call from tech. Called and left message.
2/15/03 Called and called and finally contacted the tech. He told me something which is unbelievable. He said that the machine was shipped back and accounting thought this was a return. The laptop was now disassembled into pieces and there is no way to retrieve it. Also, they have issued me a credit of $1760 (the purchase price of the laptop) and considered the matter closed. Fumed, and knowing that there is nothing I can do with the tech, I closed the case with him and said I will call customer support.
2/17/2003 Called customer support and gave my info and explained the case to a rep. Rep said he can’t help me with any compensation over $150. Asked for escalation, found a customer support manager called Montana M336390. I expressed my frustration and mentioned that I have upgraded third party memory and also wanted compensation on this issue. He was helpful and told me to fax him an invoice and he will refund me right away and also offered $300 for next purchase I made. I said I would have to think about the compensation due to the time spent reconfiguring a new machine. Got a fax number and case number from him. The case number is 034370502.
2/16/2003 Started to review my invoices and requested invoice from third party memory company. Found out that the money for service contract was not refunded to me.
2/17/2003 Called service contract department and explained issue that I should be getting an refund of my service contract since it was never fulfilled (Customer number: 000019173300 Order number: 000864023288, they refered me to call customer support to get this done.
2/22/2003 Called Customer support in hopes to find Montana M336390 to settle matter. Waited 30 minutes, was sent to New Delhi call center. Experienced India’s version of customer service. First gave my info and esplained the case to a junior rep. Gave her case number and explained to her that she can’t help me due to the $150 threshold. She insist to finish reviewing the case so I waited. She then said she doesn’t know Montana M336390 and couldn’t find him. Finally she got me her manager John 30196. First asked me for my personal information again. I said why? Didn’t you get it from my case and from your junior rep? But he insist on getting it before providing service to me. So I complied. I explained to him that I would like to settle today and pointed out the three things I would like to accomplish.
1. refund the service contract purchase price since the contract was breached.
1. .Settle with the compensation details.
1. Arrange a way to get my invoice for the thrid party RAM reimbursed.
He reviewed the case and said he cannot do anything on this case and would like to forward me to service contract department. I said it is the service contract department refer me to you. By now I know there was something fishy within. We argued a bit and he started to say that if it weren’t me allowing the technician gain access to the computer, the tech wouldn’t be able to bring it back into the office. Therefore this case wouldn’t happen. By then, I have already spend a total of 40 minutes on this India call. I knew talking to him is a loss cause, so I said I would like to speak with his manager to deal with these 3 matters. He put me on hold and came back after 10 minutes. He reiterated that he couldn’t help with the contract. But regarding the compensation, he said his manager said that I should go buy a computer and the rebate will be in the box. For crissake, in the box? This is not cracker jack , and I am sure that this guy is giving me the runaround. Knowing he would never be able to help, I asked him I would like to speak to the exact same manager, he said he just went out for a meeting. Its getting me nowhere!
Called same day again and reached another customer care rep John 341885 (not sure which department anymore, I got transferred and transferred this time.) and discussed the issue, asked him about the additional issue with the service contract refund (Customer number: 000019173300 Order number: 000864023288). We have reached a settlement which is listed below.
1. Purchase an item at Dell and Dell will credit an amount of $300 towards the purchase.
2. Dell will reimburse the lost memory upgrade due to internal logistics error.
3. Dell will refund the amount of $215.92 for the service contract which was not rendered. (Customer number: 000019173300 Order number: 000864023288).
I asked him to leave this information in my case (034370502) and fax the required information to the first rep I dealt with on 2/17 and faxed Montana M336390 the same information we agreed along with copy of the third-party ram invoice. Ordered a dell inspiron 8200 online with the small business division.
1. Invoice of the memory upgrade I have purchased for my old laptop which Dell has lost. Invoice amount ($468.70)
1. Order number ( # 000250820462)of the new computer purchase so the $300 credit can be applied to this purchase.
1. Additional credit for the service contract (order # 000864023288)which was not fulfilled. ($215.92)
Total credit due: $984.62
2/25/2003 My wife ordered the same laptop with a better price in the small business division. I tried to cancel the original order made on 2/22 ( # 000250820462) . Got bumped to a call center that was snowed out. (At that time I didn?t know about this forum.) Send an addendum to Montana M336390 on the changed order number for refund purpose.
2/26/2003 Called dell online order division and they said the order is in production, can?t cancel, need to do return.
No response from Dell. Called Dell home customer support. After 40 minutes of wait and giving the same information once again, I got Mark S365210 from home customer care. He profusely apologized, and said he will get back to me as soon as he gets the fax with the same information. I send him a fax with all updated information.
2/27/2003 Mark S365210 called and left message. Told me that he can?t work on my case since I purchased the new laptop with the small business division and he can?t apply the credit. He said I need to talk to small business division customer care to handle everything. Called small business division customer care. Got a rep by the name of Angela 346497, spent 20 minutes on phone explaining to her to escalate the issue. She refuses on the basis of the fact that the original lost laptop was purchased from the home division, so there is nothing she can do about it. She will not transfer me to her supervisor and will either send me back to home division customer care or ?release my call?.
Called Demelza 347515 at home customer care. The rep totally refuted any settlements made by previous reps.
1. She said that she cannot do compensation on an Small Business Order.
1. She said that according to contract, dell cannot reimburse anything additional third party hardware that is attached to the machine. (Knowing full well that DELL LOST MY LAPTOP)!!!
1. She said she cannot compensate for the service contract.
I asked her to talk to her supervisor, She said I had to wait for 6 to 10 minutes. GOD knows if shes going to hang up. I hung up.
Basically, I am back to step 1.
Called again at 7:15 PM talked to Chris at home division, spent 40 minutes to explain the issue again. His manager, Steve 339024 interrupted the conversation and said nothing can be done. He also said that many people on the case took action, including Demelza t, 347515 who is refunding $150 on my purchase price (Which was not the agreed amount). He said aside from the $150 refund, there is nothing he can do. I asked what other paths can I take Then he hung up on me!!! I can?t believe this.! I tried to call back immediately and there was an answering message that said the office is closed for the day!! Is that their way to treat customers when they need to do shift changes? I am so upset about this. I am so insulted by him and his department. This is serious. They conned me into purchasing a product and tried get away from any agreement I have established with. I don?t think I can take it anymore!!!!! These guys are liars and crooks!!!
9:50PM After calming down a bit, I started to do some search on the web and found some good information. From the web, I have found out that the person in charge of the customer care group at Dell is Rick Case. Then when I started doing query on his name, I have found countless amounts of complaints about his group. There are also tons of forums filled with angry dell customers complaining specifically about customer care. Also, my friend told me about a site called planetfeedback.com. So I drafted a few letters based on this case and posted and emailed it to the following sites.
www.pricgrabber.com
www.planetfeedback.com
Better Business Bureau
http://www.centraltx.bbb.org/commonreport.html?compid=84120005&national=Y ( Thanks tonydi for reminding me..)
The 2 principal dell contacts are Carlos Henriquez and Brigette Haywood. The phone number is 514-338-4400 and fax is 512-723-7365
consumerwatch@phillynews.com This is actually a very interesting site. Please read the article at this link
Jeff Gelles: Dell execs say customer service performance is improving
You may remember reading about Dell Computer here recently. Twice, I gently chided the nation’s leading computer-maker over problems with its products and technical support.
The full article will be available on the Web for a limited time:
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/3157907.htm
The author talks about his issues with dell support and got an interview with Rick Case, VP of customer care. Rick asked the author to funnel any customer complaints to him. The email address is to the author.
2/28/02
2:52AM An email from csd@dell.com came in my mailbox! This was regarding my complaint on www.planetfeedback.com. Miraculously, Sheela DTC41076 now replied that she can now do the refund on the service contact.
?I have initiated a Manual Credit Return request against
reference number 032993808 with the respective department in
order to credit your AMEX account with $215.92 for refund on
warranty. The amount will be credited to your account within
30 days of the request. Please allow one to two billing cycles
for the amount to be reflected back in your account.?
Hmm, interesting. Does she mean 30 days or two billing cycles? Or 30 days plus two billing cycles? How long is one billing cycle. Anyhoo, I?m actually happy that there is progress.
But now she said she cannot reimburse me with the memory.
?Regarding the memory purchase, I sincerely regret that Online
Customer Care is unable to provide any refunds on the third party
memory upgrade purchase since we are not authorized to do so.?
And she referred me to the business sales division to deal with the $300 compensation which all the customer care reps promised me.?
?Regarding crediting the $300.00 against your purchase under order
number 253257209, please note that since the purchase was made
in Business Sales Division, you will need to contact a representative
in that division for the refund on the purchase. You can contact
at:
1-800-456-3355
Extension 67613?
9:30AM Called the number Sheela gave and got Gabriel 28583 from online sales. He did an extensive research on this subject and got the information listed below..
a. The credit should not be issued by small business. Since the issue (the case) stems from home sales division. Small Business cannot issue the credit.
b. His manager emailed customer care from home division and reported the issue to them.
35 minutes wasted again?. Once again, back to square 2? (Square one is resolved? I think, at least I got a confirmation that I will be getting refund on my service contract.)
11:00AM Emailed Sheela with the following excerpt..
?1. This morning, I have called the number you have indicated in your email and reached small business online sales department. I have reached Gabriel 28583 and he did an extensive research on this subject and got the information listed below..
a. The credit should not be issued by small business. Since the issue (the case) stems from home sales division. Small Business cannot issue the credit.
b. His manager emailed customer care from home division and reported the issue to them.
I think this issue is still not resolved. Please help.
2. Thank you very much for your prompt action to refund the service contract.
3. Regarding to the third party memory. I was promised by not 1, but 3 senior customer care reps from both home and small business division regarding the reimbursement. It is also indicated on my case notes repeatedly that they are waiting for my fax for the invoice of the third party memory for reimbursement. The badge numbers and names for these 4 reps are as follows: Montana M336390, John 341885 , Mark S365210 Let me ask you a question. Would all your senior customer care reps make false statements? If they don’t think they can help me with the reimbursement, why would they want me to go through all the trouble to find the invoice and fax them? Is this a delay tactic which customer care uses to stall customers? As noted, the request for the faxed invoice for the third party memory appeared multiple times in my case note (#034370502) , and almost all your customer care representatives asked me about the fax in attempt to stall me and not make progress on my case. Since your reps and I have reached a verbal agreement and it was further supported in the written case notes, I adamantly demand the reimbursement on the memory. I am seeing this as a breach of an agreed contract. For your record, my decision to purchase a new dell equipment is purely based on the terms of the case settlement. Now your company pretty much wanted to strong arm me after I made the purchase. Furthermore, I sincerely believe that your division’s ability to authorize this is really not my business. I would recommend you to work between your divisions to resolve this matter in an accurate, efficient manner.
Many thanks for your time and effort. ?
11:00 AM Got a phone call from Irene Stewart at Dell Corporate regarding an email I sent to corporate on reimbursement issues. I called and left message on her machine.
From the current situation, I have derived some issues I am going to face.
1. Both customer care from home division and small business division are not going to take my case.
a. Home customer care rejects my case on the basis that I did not purchase the new machine at home division.
b. Small business customer care rejects my case on the basis that my original customer care issue stems from a machine purchased from the home division.
2. I still don?t know how Dell will reimburse me with the third party ram they have lost.
Since this case is still not resolved?. The saga continues, I will update this often until this is resolved.
These are some of my observations on customer care from my few months of experience. Why is it so?
1. No one in customer care can be initially reached by email or phone.
2. No one in customer care can find his or her colleagues even when a badge number was given.
3. Faxes are routed to the responsible party in days, not in hours.
4. Customers cannot cancel thier orders easily.
5. Tech support contractor and customer reps are rude.
Probably stemmed from the fact that their responsibility to the customers ends after the phone call, because the customers cannot find them anymore. One customer rep, Demelza 347515, actually said “You can do whatever you want with my badge number!”, while I asked for hers’ for my notes.
6. Customer care reps don’t have much training before attending to issues.
I have some questions
1. Did Dell customer care group really implemented a right CRM solution?
It seemed that the case notes are there, and the system works across all divisions. But why did the reps react differently to the same case?
2. What are the primary objectives for customer care?
Is it to resolve customer issues or to deflect it? Is there a bonus for deflecting the most customers? I wonder.
Posted by: flylice on March 1, 2003 05:15 AM
i am a dell tech as well and what the last tech said was the truth come march 23 ALL tech support will be over seas to the indians. They only get paid 200 per month so you do the math 2.50 per hour or 20 per hour, i hate dell and will never own one of them. everyone watch the customer service go from 1 to last.
DUDE, Welcome to Hell
Posted by: delltech on March 5, 2003 01:40 AM
I have to reply to the people who said that Dell is cutting edge and is the best engineered system around. You are so wrong I can’t begin to explain it. When will you ever see a dell system with proper cooling or built using an Asus or Abit motherboard, NEVER!! They’re cases are like little plastic ovens. Why do you think the hard drives fail after a year and a half?
You think they’re systems are upgradable, I mean they’ll tell you they are don’t they? Just try and upgrade the cpu with out having to replace the motherboard. The Asus boards I use to build my computers support a Pentium 1.7 all the way to a brand new 3.0 ghz! That’s what being upgradable means. Dell wants you to buy a whole new system every three years.
I have never seen any of their computers support RAID.
Just to clarify, Dell does not do anything more than assemble a computer with as cheap a parts as they can get. It maximizes their revenue. That is the bottom line for all the major corporations in the PC industry. Do you think that the average user has any idea of what’s inside their computer? Of course not, and Dell takes advantage of it. Why do you think they throw in free cd-burners as a promotion? They cost less than $20, and I’m that’s being generous. But the customer say’s “Wow, a free cd-burner.” and buys the system.
The last three people I have built real custom computers for this month were previous Dell owners who were fed up with the overpriced crap. You outta see their faces when they boot up one of my systems and see what real speed is.
OH, the company that’s really on the cutting edge is Alienware but their stuff is so out of site expensive it makes me gag. I know they are just trying to turn a profit as well, but I could build a hell of a computer for half the price of an Alienware system and still do it with top quality hardware.
P.S. For anyone about to say Dell is better than Gateway, and vice versa…IT’S THE SAME COMPUTER!!!. They each use the same low quality hardware and just put it in different cases. They have to use low quality parts or they could never sell them at these prices.
I love it when people complain about Microsoft and say the software is crap, it’s actually the shitty computer you have been running it on the whole time!!!!!!!! Every think about that.
Spread the word.
Posted by: zenguitar on March 9, 2003 02:03 AM
This is an update to my previous post, which is the letter in italics about halfway up this page.
I also vented my frustration on Planet Feedback, which I highly recommend to everyone. It got results, such as they are.
About three weeks back I got a surprise e-mail from Dell, informing me they were sending me a replacement tower. Alleged it would be the “technological equal or superior” to the misery box that precipitated this whole debacle. Somehow, I didn’t find their promise all that reasurring ;-).
So, Dell #2 shows up. Right off, it won’t boot. With immense trepidation, I called tech support, and after going through three reps, we got it going. I transferred my files & settings, & it appeared to be working normally through that process, and was noticeably faster than the original. No sooner had I finished the transfer, and wiped the hard drive clean on #1 prior to sending it back to Dell, and #2 wouldn’t boot.
My despair was profound….
So, after several more tech “support” calls, it was deduced that the hard drive controller on the motherboard was defective. Unfortunately, since they hadn’t received my original computer back yet, the tech was unable to dispatch a technician to repair/replace the motherboard. He suggested I call Customer Support, and gave me a phone # and extension.
The next morning I called that number, and was informed it was the wrong dept. Called customer support again. Rep #1 was on his second day on the job. His supervisor basically told me to go f*** myself. HIS supervisor, allegedly the floor supervisor was better. His suggestion was that I forget about having a tech out, and that what I really needed was a NEW computer, not another refurbished misery box returned by yet another customer whose dreams of technological enhancement have been dashed upon the boulder-strewn shores of the Windows wastelands.
So, a few days back I received Dell #3. With minimal and often erroneous assistance from “support”, I pulled the hard drive from #2, installed it as a second drive in #3, and transferred my files and settings with no trouble.
So far, so good.
I will certainly never buy anything from Dell again, though. The hell I had to go through just to get a properly functioning computer is mind-boggling, and I will probably never buy a computer again without a deep sense of fear and loathing.
Posted by: Bill on March 19, 2003 11:01 AM
Out of all the complaints Ive read in here, hating to break your bubbles, but your a VERY SMALL percent of unsatisfied customers. Dell is no.1 and will continue to remain that way.
Also Dell only supports the original configuration you recieved your system in for you people out there complaining about your system. And dont tell me there is nothing third party that you have added. Add retail sw and hw is not Dell’s responsibility. Neither is assisting on the back up of data you have placed on the system. Dell can not support every piece of crap you put on your system. Alot of sw issues come from the manufacturers sw/hw that has been installed. To complain, call Microsoft or whomever you got the sw/hw from.
“I LOVE MY DELL”
Posted by: anonymous on March 26, 2003 03:07 PM
This message is a reply to caswell77@hotmail.com:
Out of all the complaints Ive read in here, hating to break your bubbles, but your a VERY SMALL percent of unsatisfied customers. Dell is no.1 and will continue to remain that way.
Also Dell only supports the original configuration you recieved your system in for you people out there complaining about your system. And dont tell me there is nothing third party that you have added. Add retail sw and hw is not Dell’s responsibility. Neither is assisting on the back up of data you have placed on the system. Dell can not support every piece of crap you put on your system. Alot of sw issues come from the manufacturers sw/hw that has been installed. To complain, call Microsoft or whomever you got the sw/hw from.
“I LOVE MY DELL”
Why don’t you get a life, and not post your garbage on this forum. You obviously have no computer experience whatsoever and DELL will not be number one for long. Trust me, customers begin to see better companies who provide better services.
Posted by: CompGuy on March 29, 2003 10:43 PM
My complaint deals with the customer service. I bought my laptop in 2000 and have been rather pleased. I have had a few hardware problems but I would think this to be expected, if not, then I would not have gotten a warranty. However, the times I have had to spend on the phone is insane. I usually average 30 minutes but it has sometimes gone over an hour! Then there is the back and forth transferring between departments. As for the customer representatives, well……there are many lacking the qualified skills to troubleshooting pcs and many lacking customer relation skills. My next pc will be a desktop which I plan on building myself. These things stand for improvement and will be eventually improved. Yet, it will take people (such as those posting on this board) to make that difference and in hope to making Dell a company that everyone will want to do business with.
Posted by: BMGT on April 7, 2003 04:00 PM
Hey!
I could care if Dell is the number 1 computer in the world…they must be referring to the number 1 SUCKIEST computer in the world. Let me tell you what Dell pentium 4 {we added memory too!}can not handle:
Sims Online
AIM
KaZaa
Internet
Anything that requires it to work
Can Handle:
Microsoft Word
…We have a Dell desktop & a labtop….we spend 80% of it restarting it
My friend just got one to….nothing but problems…I suggest not to get one!
-Dell User
Posted by: Andy on April 14, 2003 10:57 PM
If you want to talk to Dell tech support, learn a new language. You will be calling India!
Posted by: rob on April 19, 2003 12:22 AM
Along with all the tech support problems it is also a nightmare dealing with dell credit. I closed my account in early January and had a credit due. It took until The middle of April, and I’ve lost count on how many phone calls and hours on hold, to get my money back.
DELL SUCKS and they will never get any of my money again.
Posted by: Geoff Green on April 20, 2003 11:00 AM
futureshop sucks too.
Posted by: . on April 23, 2003 09:50 PM
Holy crap. I have a 1998 Dell inspiron 3000. Dell computers have gone downhill over the years and every dell is basically netowrked into that. within the last 2 years my floppy drive has blown out, batterys broken, hinges falling apart, programs corrupted and to top it all off, today the cheap plastic latch that clamps the laptop toghether broke! The designers at dell probably smoke weed just like the guy in the commercial. I knew i should have gotten the IBM thinkpad.
Posted by: John on May 1, 2003 10:34 PM
Voting for a consumer lawsuit for customer purchasing negligence. AOL was sued for poor service its time to take action against dell.
Are there any lawyers who are willing to put forward a lawsuit based upon poor customer service on purchases made through dell. I have spent 2 days trying to get an order resolved and have been now hung up on 14 times mostly before I can even give them my name and order number. Not to mention 1/2 hour hold times where no one gets back to you. This is absolutly the poorest service I have ever received from a company.
I orginally tried to cancel an order 1 hour after placing the order online but they still shipped my order.
Posted by: Mitchell on May 5, 2003 08:26 PM
Dell 4 years ago was a good company. I had good luck setting up a small business with one of their servers. We had bought several more of their machines after trying others from HP, micron, and e-machines. As the number of employees grew, we continued to order machines, now a total of 12.
The last 2 orders have been a nightmare. The Dell rep. would not ship the computers usless we bought them using their payment plan. Then she screwed up the order, badly. What was even worse was the additional fee for using a credit card. One of these machines is OK, the other runs slower than an e-machine at 1/2 the rated speed and 1/4 the price, (out of the box).
As if I didn’t learn my lesson I bought the last 2 computers. When I attempted to connect the video card I found out that they converted the digital output to an anlog signal using a dongle, (which I do not have space for). DUMB. After 6 hours of phone calls, emails, et.al I now have a rep that says the warrenty starts when invoiced (no matter when the machine starts to work) and that I need to wait for the RMA even though sales cannot tell me what card they will replace them with.
They have until friday, then I send the units back. We will only buy a few more computers, maybe 2-3 a year. We will be indirect contact with over 100 others who will make this important decision. I too hate DELL is our new mantra. I have taken to recording the interactions with their “reps” and intend to place some of the better segments on-line to ensure quality. Let the Hindes service India, it is excessively difficult to attempt communicaion with those who care little and understand less.
P.S. As a small business customer our last invoice (and the HELL website lacked any number to contact a small business rep).
Why did I ever dream that they would care?
Posted by: Jeff on May 7, 2003 05:01 AM
Two weeks ago I ordered an Inspirion with *all* of the goodies. Three days later they had a much better deal on the website. I called - “You’ll have to cancel and re-order”. (sigh - ok). Re-ordered. Spent three days in “processing” status. Finally discovered (after repeated inquiries) that there was some sort of credit card issue. Spoke to some guy I now suspect was in India (great place for my credit card info to go). Rude is not the word. Called my bank - why didn’t this go through? Because Dell never re-submitted it ! Back on the phone to the rude people in India. Oh, hehe, it went through after all. Called customer service, pointed out that I had lost time due to Dell’s error, and that I had paid for next day shipping - could they expedite this order? Sure - we’d be glad to honor your request. Days pass, no updates. Then day before yesterday status had moved all the way to boxing. 24 hours later — still boxing. Called - what’s up? Sorry, how about we refund your next day shipping (it will take 45 days before you get the credit) and it should ship in another day. So I just checked the web site and it says - ” Although we had anticipated being able to ship your order sooner, we are experiencing an unexpected delay and we will not be able to ship you your order until 5/14/2003. You have chosen Next Business Day shipping; therefore your expected delivery date is May 15. We apologize for the delay. We will continue working hard to get your order to you. ”
Keep in mind that we had gotten all the way up to “boxed”! Anybody this screwed up worries me so I did a quick Google search and found this site. I will be calling Dell to cancel my order in the morning. You guys (in concert with Dell’s stupidity) have saved me from a big mistake. Too bad, it had everything I ever wanted in a laptop, but perhaps it was going to come with some things I didn’t want as well!
As an aside, I